Will tropical coral reefs be the first ecosystem to be eliminated by climate change?

Thursday, April 13, 2006

In the long term

At a conference earlier this week (see here), I mentioned to Oliver Morton of Nature that I was writing a book about coral reefs, the future of which looked precarious. What, he asked, had happened to the Great Barrier Reef during the last ice age?

I said that as far as I understood, reefs had on quite a few occasions in recent geological history been quite resilient over tens of thousands of years. Looking ahead, human activity (direct impacts and pollution, global warming, ocean acidification) might not wipe out reefs altogether or at least not the capacity of some corals and other organisms to build new reefs. But recovery and renewal - if it came - might be quite a long time in the future, perhaps several thousand more years. In the meantime the consequences could be grave.

"Ah yes", said Morton (who has written a book about Mars and keeps this blog), "I tend to think on much longer geological timescales".

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"Mike", the world's first hydrogen bomb, vaporised Elugelap island and other parts of the Enewetak atoll on 1 November 1952. In the half century or so since then humans have destroyed around a quarter - some say a half - of all tropical coral reefs, which are one the world's richest and oldest ecosystems and provide vital benefits in over 100 countries. Will the rest be gone within another fifty years - or less? So what?

Please note that this blog is now pretty much 'on hold', with only occasional updates since January 2008. For notes on the Anthropocene extinction and what comes next see The Book of Barely Imagined Beings.